Placing (the absences of) West African sardinellas in Senegal on the animal geographies map

Starting from the vantage point that animal geographies remain primarily concerned with present animals, what might we learn from an attentiveness to the absence(s) of animals in the context of human-nonhuman relations as approached by the subdiscipline? This prompt is addressed in this commentary b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scottish geographical journal 2024-10, Vol.140 (3-4), p.435-448
Main Author: Pille-Schneider, Louis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
absence-presence
Animals
Fish
Fishing
Humans
infrastructure
Political animal geography
Postcolonialism
Senegal
West African sardinellas
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Summary:Starting from the vantage point that animal geographies remain primarily concerned with present animals, what might we learn from an attentiveness to the absence(s) of animals in the context of human-nonhuman relations as approached by the subdiscipline? This prompt is addressed in this commentary by placing (the absences of) West African sardinellas - small pelagic fish - in Senegal on the animal geographies map. Focusing on a derivative of sardinellas, keccax (artisanally smoked and dried fish), and its traces in fish-processing infrastructures in one fishing town on the Senegalese seaboard, the following remarks address twofold absences of the fish: sardinellas' absence in the animal geographies literature; and sardinellas' absence in certain locales in Senegal at the current moment. Against these absences, I argue that animal geographies would significantly benefit, both empirically and theoretically, from more deliberate inquiries into how humans experience animals as absent, across their life and death cycle. Such an attentiveness to animal absences, their diverse and always situated manifestations, and the ways they are being experienced by humans entangled in transforming more-than-human political economies, affords inquiring into ways of remaining 'afloat' in such post-colonial geographies of protracted extractivism as the one presented in this intervention.
ISSN:1470-2541
1751-665X
DOI:10.1080/14702541.2024.2371800